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Dell in $24 Billion Deal to Go Private — Dell announced Tuesday that it had agreed to go private in a $24 billion deal led by its founder and the investment firm Silver Lake, in the biggest leveraged buyout since the financial crisis. — Under the terms of the deal, the buyers' consortium …

Growing Numbers of Start-Ups Are Worth a Billion Dollars — SAN FRANCISCO — The number of privately held Silicon Valley start-ups that are worth more than $1 billion shocks even the executives running those companies. — “I thought we were special,” said Phil Libin, chief executive of Evernote …

Facebook Is Said to Create Mobile Location-Tracking App — Facebook Inc. (FB) is developing a smartphone application that will track the location of users, two people with knowledge of the matter said, bolstering efforts to benefit from growing use of social media on mobile computers.

The Threat of Silence — Meet the groundbreaking new encryption app set to revolutionize privacy and freak out the feds. — For the past few months, some of the world's leading cryptographers have been keeping a closely guarded secret about a pioneering new invention. Today, they've decided it's time to tell all.

About.me Buys Itself Back from AOL — Here's your next challenge as a founder of a start-up: Sell your company to a digital behemoth for tens of millions of dollars, then buy it back for a fraction of the cost. Oh, and keep the change. — On Monday, About.me, an online identity Web site …

HTC M7 to ditch megapixels in favour of Ultrapixels — HTC is to use a new camera sensor on its much-rumoured HTC M7?smartphone, Pocket-lint can confirm, which will use what the company calls Ultrapixels. — Although rumours have suggested the new smartphone will use a 13-megapixel sensor …

Evolution of a Founder: Lessons I have learned — Being a startup founder is hard, tough, frustrating and rewarding - possibly all within the space of a nanosecond. And yet, it is like a high none other. I have experienced it in others. And quietly, I have lived it for over six years.

Report: Qihoo's iOS Apps Under Special Investigation by Apple — Still banned by Apple: the 360 Browser HD for iPad. — At the start of last week, all the 20+ iOS apps made by Chinese software company and search engine Qihoo (NYSE:QIHU) vanished from Apple's App Store - and they still haven't been restored.

Huawei launches Windows phone in Africa — The customised Huawei Windows phone will only be available in Africa — Chinese telecoms giant Huawei has unveiled a bespoke Windows-run smartphone exclusively available in Africa. — The customised device is being launched today in partnership …

Lenovo ThinkPad Helix delayed until March or April — Lenovo's versatile ThinkPad Helix was one of the more impressive convertible laptops we saw at CES 2013, but there's some bad news for those holding out for its mooted February release date. Responding to a question on the company's Facebook page …

Brazil: The Social Media Capital of the Universe — SÃO PAULO—When Barbosa family members botched their cover of an old Brazilian gospel song last year on a family video, they thought it was pretty funny—funny enough to upload to YouTube. — But they didn't expect the rest of Brazil to laugh along with them.

Men Who Took Silicon to Silicon Valley — “Silicon Valley” is a deceptively grand title for the new “American Experience” documentary Tuesday night on PBS. “Fairchild Semiconductor” would be more accurate. It could even be called “Robert Noyce” or, with a musical score and some dance numbers, “Noyce!”